Gravity Probe B, a NASA/Stanford physics experiment, recently finished its year-long mission orbiting the Earth. The final results may take a year to analyze but promise to aid in visualizing the shape of space-time around Earth. If Einstein’s theory of relativity holds true, and this is the big theoretical question that’s being testing, Earth’s spacetime is a vortex:

This month’s Discover magazine features a colorful and well-written cover story about the Clock of the Long Now, a clock that’s being masterfully engineered to remain on Earth for 10,000 years (that’s twice as long as the Great Pyramid of Giza) and to keep impeccably precise time along the way. It has yet to be built although an extraordinary prototype is currently on display at the Science Musuem in London. It is a unique clock not only in function and scope but in almost every other way: design, power system, mechanics, placement, and philosophy. Just a small example: it tracks leap centuries. Think about it. In our disposable culture, something that lasts 400 human generations is almost incomprehensible.

Reports about scientific studies that provide clues to links between the brain, the mind, and meditation are surfacing around the web, spawned in particular by the Dalai Lama’s appearance this past weekend at Investigating the Mind, a round of talks on the science and clinical application of meditation. Here’s a survey of the top stories on the subject:

Good news for clean-energy optimists: The dramatic array of lean, green driving machines on display at the Tokyo Auto Show recently provided ample evidence that humanity can, indeed, innovate its way out of environmental problems. Once every two years, major players in the auto industry convene in Tokyo to give the public a glimpse of their most futuristic automotive designs—dazzling concept cars that look borrowed from the set of The Matrix or swiped from the garage of George Jetson.

This year they all had one thing in common, aside from snazzy space-pod designs: fabulous fuel economy.